Advertising: Agency & Client Relationships
Excerpts from Chapter 12 of How to get the best advertising from your agency by Nancy Salz.
Agency & Client Commitments
A personal contract for collaborators
The six agency commitments: What you should expect from your agency.
1. Commitment to the success of your business. The best agency people are 100 percent committed to the same goal you are: success in the marketplace. Their commitment is evidenced by their time, enthusiasm, work, and knowledge that if you succeed, they succeed.
[The best agency account person] made suggestions. Not only would she have things to me when they were due and not only would she think to get things done that I didn't ask she'd also come up with suggestions. If I asked her to do something, she'd say "fine," but then she'd come up with something better or take something one or two steps further. Ellen Elias, Group Product Manager, Lever Brothers
Anybody that's good would want your undivided attention, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. They want you to work on their business all the time and to be thinking about their business all the time They want your blood. Bernard Rosner, Vice-President, Creative Director, Ogilvy & Mather Partners
2. Knowledge of your business. Agency people, particularly the account group, cannot solve your advertising problems unless they have understood and evaluated the market in which you compete. You can help by providing information, but they must do the digging.
3. Open-mindedness. Good agency people are committed to the importance of a good idea, no matter what its source. The "not invented here" syndrome has no place in a collaborative relationship.
4. Honesty.
5. Leadership from your account people. Account people are your primary contact and your source of communication within the agency. You have a right to expect that once you and your account person have reached agreement on the direction of work, the account person will
Agency & Client Commitments
A personal contract for collaborators
The six agency commitments: What you should expect from your agency.
1. Commitment to the success of your business. The best agency people are 100 percent committed to the same goal you are: success in the marketplace. Their commitment is evidenced by their time, enthusiasm, work, and knowledge that if you succeed, they succeed.
[The best agency account person] made suggestions. Not only would she have things to me when they were due and not only would she think to get things done that I didn't ask she'd also come up with suggestions. If I asked her to do something, she'd say "fine," but then she'd come up with something better or take something one or two steps further. Ellen Elias, Group Product Manager, Lever Brothers
Anybody that's good would want your undivided attention, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. They want you to work on their business all the time and to be thinking about their business all the time They want your blood. Bernard Rosner, Vice-President, Creative Director, Ogilvy & Mather Partners
2. Knowledge of your business. Agency people, particularly the account group, cannot solve your advertising problems unless they have understood and evaluated the market in which you compete. You can help by providing information, but they must do the digging.
3. Open-mindedness. Good agency people are committed to the importance of a good idea, no matter what its source. The "not invented here" syndrome has no place in a collaborative relationship.
4. Honesty.
5. Leadership from your account people. Account people are your primary contact and your source of communication within the agency. You have a right to expect that once you and your account person have reached agreement on the direction of work, the account person will